Blythe Masters enters Wall Street’s bitcoin tech race with her first issuance of a crypto-security

The race officially has begun to build decentralized ledgers similar to that behind bitcoin into Wall Street’s infrastructure. Today, Digital Asset Holdings, the last of the three leaders in the nascent industry, formally announced its first securities issuance.

While the other two companies counting off milestones may have beat Digital Assets Holding to market, this issuance, led by Blythe Masters, the former chief technical officer of JPMorgan Chase, is certainly one of the most anticipated.

“Digital Asset is proud to have provided the technology to permit Pivit and its investors to take advantage of the efficiency, speed and security of issuance of a private security on the blockchain,” Masters, who helped invent credit default swaps during her time at JPMorgan Chase, said in a statement. “The issuance is an important milestone in demonstrating the potential of blockchain technology.”

The issuance was completed in partnership with secure wallet platform Case, based in Rochester, N.Y., and London-based blockchain security company Elliptic. Its designed to ensure that the digitally issued securities remain under control of Pivit and its investors.

According to the statement released today, the Digital Asset Holdings’ securities have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, or any state securities laws. This isn’t necessarily unusual, so long as they meet certain other requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Blythe Masters and the Digital Asset team are positioned to bring together a wide variety of constituents from the financial community,” said Pivit director and co-founder Greg DePetris, in a statement. “And we’re excited to be in a position as a company to take advantage of the efficiencies being created through the institutionalization of blockchain technology.”

The first application of the decentralized ledger technology, called a blockchain, was to build the cryptocurrency called bitcoin, now valued at $239 each with a global market cap of $3.4 billion. But the technology can also be used to streamline any exchange of value, including assets on Wall Street. While bitcoin was invented in 2008, most other applications weren’t being seriously implemented until this year.